


We Make Our Own Rules

by IdrisSmith



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Roux, F/M, In Which Author Had a Mental Breakdown and Wrote This at 3AM, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Reylo - Freeform, background stormpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22104664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdrisSmith/pseuds/IdrisSmith
Summary: Ben Solo and Rey Niima had been dating for over five years and known each other for much longer. However, it didn’t seem like Ben was any closer to proposing and Rey was getting impatient. How hard was it to ask a girl you’ve dated for five years and lived with for over three to marry you?
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rey, Ben Solo/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	We Make Our Own Rules

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Yes, I had a breakdown and apparently the fact that I write fluff pieces when I'm sad is still true after ten bloody years, regardless of the fandom. This technically my first published Reylo story because I never thought I'd be brave enough to post this anywhere. But it's 450AM, and I thought, eff it. I'll post this. Considering I'm mostly a hermit these days and I've avoided social media (see my profile), I don't have any BETA -- I don't even know anyone in Reylo fandom who'd even BETA for me... So... Yeah. This story is not BETA'd, which means all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

It was her home. Every nook and corner of the two floors, three bedrooms brownstone was home. It had been her home with Ben ever since she moved in a little over three years ago. Life with Ben had its ups and downs. He didn’t make it easy when even when he tried, he fumbled somehow, and she certainly didn’t like losing. Still, she knew she loved him with all her heart and as sappy as it sounds, he was half of her soul. Though, after five years of dating and seeing Hux and Rose who met later than they tie the knot early in the Fall, Rey was getting worried that she and Ben were no longer on the same page. With Christmas looming, she knew it would be another round of “when will you two settle down?”

Well, it’s not like she  _ wanted  _ to get married or so she told herself. It’s just; she wouldn’t mind being married to the love of her life. Yes, she probably could do better than the ever awkward doctor, but she didn’t want anyone else. Rose thought it was romantic when she bemoaned her fate during their day out the week Ben was away, Finn wanted to gag when Rose asked questions that were bordering on the ‘too much information line’. Poe suggested she should just ask Ben if it’s taking him this long.

Poe wasn’t alone with the suggestion. Han and Leia, she was close to Ben’s parents as well. Even went as far as telling her to drag Ben’s arse to Ireland on leap day to propose because they’re not getting any younger and they wanted to see them getting married before they kick the bucket—Han’s word, Leia didn’t disagree. Sounded like a great plan, but there’s a huge chance she’d panic and chicken out, and then waste way too much money on a vacation that she knew she’d spent moping around.

Then Han asked if Rey wanted him to force Ben to ask—he meant well, though she didn’t think that would’ve gone well. She understood his parents wanted her to be their daughter-in-law, Ben knew it too, and she didn’t doubt he loved her, she just...

Luke offered to ask on her behalf. She turned that down. That was another can of worm she didn’t want to deal with if she was honest.

She spent a month worth of nervous energy with half of it having to deal with being apart from each other due to her work commitments and then his, she decided fuck Ireland, and she was going to ask Ben in their home.

If he said no, she might never be okay with it, and they’ll never be the same, but she had to do it. She had to know if there was more to what she had with him and she wanted to see the life they could have before they die of old age.

She gathered all her courage. After a long day at the office, trying not to strangle some of her peers for mucking up a new engine design she spent months working on, she raced home to make sure she got there before Ben. Some days it was easy to get back home before him, but most of the time he was already there making dinner and waiting for her if his schedule allowed him. No one would ever suspect their attending surgeon would be at ease in the kitchen, which amused her to no end.

The clock ticked away slowly as she glanced up to look at it again. It was almost eight, that was normal, she expected Ben to be late this week because he was still catching up on work after the conference.

And then she heard it. The sound of his keys jingling and turning before the door was pushed open. She shot up from her seat, palms sweating, almost wanting to break free from her own skin.

“Hey...” his voice trailed, spotting her as he stepped into the house. Clearly, he sensed her nervous energy and looked utterly confused.

“Ben, I—“ she panicked. Great, things are going fantastically so far.

“What’s wrong?” he spoke as he moved towards her, closing the distance between them. He stood an arm reach away from her, looking at her face with concern. She can’t blame him for that; he was most likely trying to figure out if he missed something or if she was angry at him for reasons that he didn’t quite understand.

“We need to talk.” Not the best way to start anything as she watched his face fell. It was definitely not the best way to start a conversation. “Oh, fuck.”

“Rey—“ he wanted to say something, but she wouldn’t let him.

She barreled through, quickly bend down to her knee like a typical way anyone would propose and immediately blurted the words, “Benjamin Bail Organa-Solo, would you marry me?”

The world was silent. Rey was aware that there were noises, but they fell away. Instead, there was this buzzing noise filling her head as the silence took hold of her. He looked—flabbergasted, unsure, entirely out of his depth and immediately she felt like she made the biggest mistake of her life.

“I-“

“I thought you didn’t want to get married?”

They spoke at the same time, but Ben blurted his words faster than she could hers, and it was her turn to be confused. There appear to have been some sort of miscommunication between them. Not that they were great at it in the first place, but they are getting better at talking about things out rather than bottling everything until they erupted like Mount Vesuvius.

“Rey, please get up, you’ll hurt yourself if you stay in that position.”

She was in a daze, but aware he was helping her up and manoeuvring them towards the couch. He sat her down ever-so-gently before claim empty space next to her.

Her brain caught up.

“What gives you the idea that I didn’t want to get married?” There was apparent confusion in her tone. She wondered when she had said something to imply that it was something she expected to happen between them.

“Our third date, you said you couldn’t see yourself as a married woman. You’re good with a relationship, but getting married was too serious.”

How they get to the third date was still a mystery because early in their relationship, they had a lot to work on as separate individuals. She didn’t want to remind herself of the age difference and how she ended up agreeing to the date with someone ten years older than she was. Somehow it worked out for them, and somehow, Ben remembered their third date. “Ben, I was twenty-three, and it was our third date!”

“And at Poe’s and Finn’s wedding you told me you don’t really do weddings, but you’ll do it for your friends.” 

_ Wait. What? _

“I meant the craziness of it all. Poe called me at four in the morning crying over boutonnières!” In her defence, she had a long week, and Poe was not helping when he kept calling with wedding updates. Between him and Finn, she was losing her patience, she loved her friends, but by that time, she was ready to crush the boutonnières under her feet. She didn’t tell Ben that, of course. 

She noted how Ben was looking at her exasperatedly. “Rey, you told Hux that you’re happy with how we were when he asked you if we’re ever tying the knot. And whenever anyone asks you’ve dodged the question or make some indifferent comments.”

“Oh.”

Okay, when Ben put it that way, she supposed she did say  _ some  _ things that can be taken as her not interested in married life. An average person would have assumed the same thing as well. It didn’t matter; she had to press forward.

“Do you want to get married?”

“It doesn’t matter. I want what you want. I don’t care about doing things conventionally or if this is all we’ll ever be, as long as you’re in my life.”

Sometimes she forgot how much Ben was following her lead. He was always the first person to apologise even when it wasn’t even his fault. And yes, he can get overwhelmed, but always, always he was the one who made everything right before she ever did. Suddenly the joke Rose made about him looking like a kicked puppy didn’t feel like a joke.

“It does matter, Ben,” she pressed because they need to talk about it. A topic she never thought she had to talk about and assumed she didn’t have to worry about it. “Did you ever consider marrying me.”

There was a long sigh. Rey watched him run his hand through his hair.

“From the moment I met you,” he admitted at last.

Rey looked shocked at how much Ben was keeping inside. How much compromises he made in silence because he thought of her first. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Rey, if my parents or my uncle forced you into this, know that we don’t have to listen to them.” Of course, he would think someone pressured into it. Years later, it appeared he can’t quite believe she chose him.

“You’re not answering my question, Ben.”

He looked hesitant but decided to answer her anyway.

“Because I love you. And if loving you means never getting married, never having anything else beyond what we have now, I’m alright with that. I don’t want to lose you by asking for something from you that you can’t or won’t do. It’s not fair to you.”

“And it’s fair to you?” Rey interjected, she tried not to think about how sweet it was because she had to understand what was going through his mind first.

He shook his head. “It’s fair as long as I get to see you smile.”

She wanted to cry. Her beautiful idiot. How she never noticed it was beyond her. There was too much truth in her friends’ comment now that she realised the length he would go to ensure she was happy. It was like he needed her to be happy so that he could be too.

Just like that, everything seemed so easy. “Marry me then, Ben Solo and make me smile for the rest of our lives.”

He blinked.

She grinned at him.

“You’re serious?”

She saw how he was still having a hard time believing that she was asking him to marry her because she wanted to. And boy, she was glad she asked since she doubted Ben would ever build-up the courage to ask her no matter how long they were together. Not when he didn’t believe it was something she would want as well.

She nodded this time, encouraging him without a word.

Hope. She saw hope in his eyes. But she felt he could use more encouragement from her, another push to let him know that yes, she wanted to marry him so would he please say yes. “Well, I was thinking Spring, or maybe we could just hop over to the courthouse—“

“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Spring, courthouse, whatever you want.” It was what she wanted to hear.

Rey thought she could kiss him. So, she did. And he kissed her back with a smile never quite leaving his lips. There’s just one thing she needed to make sure he knew before having to deal with another loaded misunderstanding.

“And for the record, I want kids.”

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't want to talk about TRoS. I've chosen to ignore it.


End file.
